69,000 Big Data Specialists Needed by 2017

A report released by e-skills UK and SAS, the leader in business analytics, predicts around a third of the UK’s larger organisations will implement big data analytics programmes in the next five years, pushing the demand for big data specialists up by 243 per cent to 69,000.

Key points

Around 90% of firms consider achieving major or minor business benefits by increasing the talents of their big data analytics users.

Data and analytic skills identified as the most likely to generate the largest business.

Three out of five large UK organisations are finding it challenging to hire the specialists they need.

Estimated there are around 94 core big data users in every large UK organisation, which has used a big data analytics programme – around 383,000 people in total.

Proportionately, the rise in the number of big data users is likely to be lower than specialists – 177 per cent over the next five years.

Number of users is set to rise dramatically to around 644,000 by 2017.

The report, Big Data Analytics: Adoption and employment trends, is the first one of its kind to identify current and future adoption rates for big data by type and size of organisation in the UK with information supplied by 1,000 businesses across the country.

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Comments

UK Minister of State for Trade and Investment Lord Green said that business sectors across the economy are being transformed by data, analytics, and modelling.

“The UK now has the opportunity to take a lead in the global efforts to deal with the volume, velocity and variety of data created each day; to do this we need to ensure the government, academia and businesses work together to further develop the skills available to us today and actively support programmes that nurture development in the next generation.”

“There is a real need to focus on business analytics and in particular ask our colleagues working in social science to look at the development of courses that will tap into the richness of information that is available from consumers through initiatives such as customer loyalty.

We also need to bring students to our industry organisations that are already working with big data. If we find the right student and place them with the organisation, it provides the businesses with resources to explore just how they can turn insight from their data into business innovation. It also means that the data retains its integrity in the environment designed for it and a stronger chance of employment for the student.”

“These are skills upon which companies of all sizes will be reliant in future, and in which the UK has global leadership potential. In recognition of this, we are bringing employers and educators together, to develop industry-led apprenticeships, degree courses and professional development opportunities, which will raise the skill levels of existing workers and increase the supply of new entrants with specialist expertise.”